1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of storing teaching points of a robot having different moving units such as a finger, an arm, and the like, and a robot control apparatus for controlling a robot in accordance with these teaching points.
2. Related Background Art
A robot ordinarily has a plurality of movable units or moving units or objects to be controlled (to be referred to as control objects hereinafter). For example, such control objects include a robot body unit (e.g., a multi-joint arm), and a finger unit (e.g., a finger rotatable in the axial direction of the arm). In this case, since both the arm and finger must be controlled, the moving direction of the arm and the rotational direction of the finger must be closely related to each other. In general, both control objects are controlled by a single control apparatus. Conventionally, in order to control a plurality of control objects, a single control apparatus stores teaching points of these control objects in predetermined memory areas.
However, in the prior art, since the teaching points of the control objects are classified by only memory areas, a teaching point of an extra control object cannot be stored in an area together with predetermined areas for the control objects.
No identification data for identifying control objects is attached to the teaching points for the control objects.
For this reason, if the wrong control object is directed, for example, when a teaching point of the finger unit is directed in a moving command of the robot body unit, the robot body unit is moved to a point indicated by the teaching point data of the finger unit. As a result, a work or a robot (body) may be damaged.
In a test process for robot control, the following case frequently occurs, for example, when it is determined that the stored teaching point data of, e.g., the arm, is offset from a desired position, the teaching point data must be changed slightly.
However, in a changing process, since an operator cannot identify a storage position of the teaching point data, he often changes a teaching point of the finger although he wants to change a teaching point of the arm. Normally, the operator cannot notice this error at that time, and notices it after the robot is erroneously moved. However, this erroneous operation results in damage to the robot.